Lennart Björneborn gave a panel presentation on serendipity and information encountering. He defined serendipity as occurring when people encounter unplanned yet interesting resources like information, things, or people. This definition encompasses both minor everyday serendipities and more significant serendipitous discoveries. Björneborn submitted a paper identifying three key factors that afford serendipity and three corresponding personal traits. While serendipity cannot be fully engineered, environments can be designed to make exploration and discovery easier by being more diverse, connective, and sensory-rich, which may trigger curiosity, mobility, and sensitivity in people. Libraries in particular are well-suited to facilitating serend

1. Björneborn (2004). Small-world link
structures across an academic Web space:
A library and information science approach.
Panel session, ASIS&T 2016
”Research Perspectives on Serendipity and Information Encountering”
Lennart Björneborn
Associate Professor, PhD
University of Copenhagen
Royal School of Library and Information Science
@connecto

2. • “Serendipity happens when we, in unplanned ways,
encounter resources (information, things, people, etc.)
that we find interesting.”
(Björneborn submitted: ‘Three key affordances for serendipity’)
• definition covers different degrees/ types of serendipity
— “foreground” serendipity/ “background” serendipity
including commonplace everyday ”micro-serendipity”
—Björneborn/ @connecto

3. Slide 3
IVA – Royal School of Library and Information Science
• “Serendipity happens when we, in unplanned ways,
encounter resources (information, things, people, etc.)
that we find interesting.”
(Björneborn submitted: ‘Three key affordances for serendipity’)
• “Serendipity plays a fundamental – but perhaps
underestimated – role in how we discover, explore,
and learn in all fields of life.” (Ibid.)

4. three key affordances for serendipity
with three corresponding key personal factors
Royal School of Library and Information Science
(Björneborn submitted: ‘Three key affordances for serendipity’)

5. Royal School of Library and Information Science
• we can not ”engineer serendipity”
• we can not design environments that always lead to serendipity
o serendipity = highly subjective & situational phenomenon
• however, we can design affordances for serendipity so
an environment easier can be diversified, traversed & sensed
triggering people to be more curious, mobile & sensitive
o libraries = great serendipity engines connecting people & ideas
• importance of our bodies, incl. sensory-motor abilities,
to discover & explore serendipitous affordances;
expanding our “outreach horizons”
take-aways
Dokk1, new public library, Aarhus
—Björneborn/ @connecto